27 October 2015

Creating a Purposeful Bucket List

Making a bucket list is simple enough: write down the things that you’ve always wanted to do but never got around to doing. But the important thing is to put down everything that comes to your mind, without analyzing the practicality of it.

Having an ongoing bucket list is a great way to make sure you live a life, as they say, with "no regrets". It gives you the motivation to go and do those the seemingly impossible and overcome doubts about yourself. But most importantly, a bucket list challenges you; it gives you goals to work towards throughout your life.

Bucket lists have become a popular concept and the widespread theme is travelling – going on extreme adventures, visiting exotic locations or going on wild cooking tours. These adventures are all on people’s bucket lists for an excellent reason — to see the world and enjoy life. But there are a select few who choose to travel with a greater purpose.

An AIESEC experience is definitely something that challenges you and it would add value to your bucket list, as it has for many of us. It covers the criteria of adventure, self-awareness and personal development, whilst allowing you to make an impact on a community. It develops the leadership skills every business graduate should have.

Daniel Chong, a student at the University of Sydney, embarked to Taiwan to volunteer for an education project at a junior high school last summer. He believed the challenge would be for him to stick to his lesson plans and deliver the class content properly. However, it turned out the real challenge was getting through to the students.

“There was a lot of silence in my classes when I posed my students with questions, even if it was a simple “Good morning class, how are we feeling today?”. He realised that he had to change the way he taught to make the classroom more activity-oriented to engage with the students.

In Daniel’s words, his experience empowered him; “It made me lose my doubts and I realised that I want to continue to lose them as I go on”.

And that is what AIESEC experiences allow each and every participant to achieve. It presents you with the opportunity to challenge yourself and see what you can accomplish; AIESEC believes in leadership through exchange. By experiencing both workplace culture and everyday life in a different country, AIESEC’s Global Citizen program is designed to focus on self-development and contributing positively to society.

AIESEC is the world’s largest international youth run organisation with partners in 126 countries. The organisation aims to deliver leadership experiences through exchange in order to achieve their vision of 'peace and fulfilment of humankind's potential'.Teni Pham
Member of AIESEC Sydney and current student at the University of Sydney